UK charges first person, a doctor, over Rwanda’s 1994 genocide that killed 800,000, one of the largest since the Holocaust

A 65-year-old medical doctor has become the first person in the UK to face criminal prosecution in connection with the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

• Dr. Vincent Brown, formerly Dr. Vincent Bajinya, is the first person in the UK prosecuted for the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
• British authorities charged him under the 2001 International Criminal Court Act for actions related to genocide.
• He is accused of killing, directing, or encouraging the deaths of Tutsi civilians in Kigali’s Rugenge district during the genocide.
• Brown, a former physician and health official in Rwanda, has worked in UK refugee services since 2006.

Dr. Vincent Brown, previously known as Dr. Vincent Bajinya, confirmed his details at Westminster Magistrates’ Court following a seven-year police investigation by British authorities.

According to BBC, prosecutors charged Brown under the 2001 International Criminal Court Act with “conduct ancillary to genocide and six offences of conduct ancillary to murder, as a crime against humanity.”

According to the Crown Prosecution Service, the allegations involve an April 1994 mass slaughter in the Rugenge district of Kigali, where Brown is accused of “killing, directing or encouraging” the deaths of Tutsi civilians.

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The charges arise from a 100-day campaign of violence that claimed approximately 800,000 lives, an event characterized by Study.com as “marking the third-largest genocide since the Holocaust”.

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Before moving to London, Brown qualified as a physician in Rwanda during the 1980s and later led the country’s Department of Family Health in Kigali.

In Britain, he worked for the refugee charity Praxis in 2006 and previously served on the Refugee Nurses Task Force advising the UK government.

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Defense barrister Sam Blom-Cooper told the court that his client firmly denies all accusations and intends to face a jury to wipe away the “stains of these appalling allegations”.

Blom-Cooper added that while “these are appalling crimes, terrible murders committed in 1994,” the legal proceedings mark “the beginning of the end for Dr Brown”.

According to BBC, a senior British law enforcement officials stressed that the United Kingdom must not serve as a safe haven for suspected war criminals.

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